From Propaganda to ‘Information’: Reforming Government Communications in Britain

Since the 1980s, several studies of post-war British propaganda have been published. While many of these have focused on developments abroad, some have explored domestic work carried out under the auspices of the Central Office of Information. Established in 1946, the Central Office of Information provided a range of services to government departments, including advertising and public opinion polling, but it was just part of a wider system of official communications that has tended to attract less attention in the historiography. Reorganised by Clement Attlee’s post-war Labour governments, this system was presented to the public as a means of disseminating impartial and apparently non-controversial ‘facts’ about government policy. Few commentators today accept that justification, but little is known about why it emerged after the Second World War or what impact it had on existing communications machinery. Taking a broad view of the subject that considers the inter-war and wartime antecedents to the post-war communications system, this paper seeks to fill in some of the gaps that have emerged in the literature. Focusing on shifts in official nomenclature and departmental practice, it explores the relationship propaganda shared to government policy and its broader legacy in the twentieth century.     

略议风景植被

文本提出了风景植被的含义,阐述了风景植被的发生是人类文明进化的结果,分析了风景植被的宏观构景和微观信息特征。同时还以西安临潼骊山旅游区为例,介绍了风景植被的分类系统。     

LES RÉSEAUX TERRITORIALISÉS D'INFORMATION FACE À LA COMMUNICATION-MONDE: UNE EXPÉRIMENTATION QUÉBÉCOISE

L'information devient de plus en plus un enjeu crucial pour les institutions et acteurs engagés dans des processus territoriaux de développement. Comme la littérature sur les NTIC le démontre, l'accès a l'information concernant leur environnement global (sources de capitaux, tendances globales, débouchés, encadrement) ainsi qu'à celle concernant leurs atouts locaux et spécifiques (ressources humaines, physiques, financièrs et institutionnelles, identités, possibilités de mobilisation) fournit des indications indispensables pour faction des collectives locales engagées dans des projets de développement. Cependant, ce qui est souvent négligé c'est que le processus même par lequel cette information est produite et diffusée constitue en soi un facteur intervenant dans l'orientation que prend le développement. L'information marque les territoires concernés. Aussi est-il essentiel de construire des inforoutes permettant la participation des collectivités à la production de l'information qui les concerne. L'Atlas du Québec et de ses régions est une expérience qui vise cet objectif. Dans ce texte, nous présentons l'état d'avancement et les conclusions préliminaires de cette expérience. Information networking is a crucial issue for organizations and socio-economic actors. As the literature on development shows, information at the global level (financial perspectives, global tendencies, markets, and regulations), as well as at the local level (demographic and social characteristics; human, physical, economic, institutional, and organizational resources; specific assets; quality of life; etc.) is indispensable to local collectivities involved in development projects. Nevertheless, often overlooked is the fact that the very process by which this information is produced and disseminated has a significant effect on the direction of development. Information has an impact on the local community. There is a need for building territory information networks that allow local communities to produce the information that concerns them. This paper presents first a global survey of globalization and the effects of information highways on specific territories, and second, an experiment in progress about building a territory information network in the province of Québec, the Atlas of Québec and Its Regions.     

城市语言景观研究进展及展望

语言景观是城市景观的重要组成部分,同时也是重要的人文地理表征。新世纪以来语言景观日益引起语言学家和地理学家的关注和重视。1997年西方社会语言学家首先提出了语言景观(linguistic landscape)定义,21世纪以来涌现出大量城市语言景观研究成果;国内语言景观主要集中在城镇书法景观的地理学研究,主要包括书法景观与城镇景观的关系、书法景观的空间属性、书法景观的人地关系等。论文从三个方面对城市语言景观进行了评述。最后从语言地理学视角,对未来城市语言景观重要研究内容进行了展望,认为城市语言景观将可能成为语言地理学深入研究的有效途径和新方向,尤其是在城市象征空间塑造及其地方建构中语言景观研究将大有作为。     

政治全球化视角下的日本政治大国战略

政治全球化进程的加快对国际政治、国际关系产生了深远的影响。对日本而言,是从经济大国走向政治大国的难得契机,再加上国内新国家主义的鼓动驱策,其政治大国目标清晰,政治大国战略选择日益引人注目。     

Missing the point: globalization, deterritorialization and the space of the world

This article provides a critique of a dominant strand of the literature on globalization – that which suggests it can be understood as deterritorialization. It argues that suggestions that we have moved away from territorial understandings of politics fail to conceptually elaborate the notion of territory itself. Drawing parallels between mathematics and politics in the seventeenth century, the paper claims that the notion of territory is dependent on a particular way of grasping space as calculable. This way of understanding space makes bounded territories possible, but also underlies new global configurations. In other words globalization is a reconfiguration of existing understandings rather than the radical break some suggest. The article concludes by making some comments on this reconfiguration, and suggesting that further historical and conceptual work on territory is necessary before it can be thought to be superseded.     

Convergence space: process geographies of grassroots globalization networks

This paper considers grassroots globalization networks, which comprise a diversity of social movements working in association to engage in multi-scalar political action. Drawing upon David Harvey's notion of militant particularism (regarding the problems of effecting politics between different geographical scales), and recent research on networks and their relationship to places, the paper analyses People's Global Action, an international network of social movements opposing neoliberal globalization. From an analysis of the process geographies of People's Global Action, the paper proposes the notion of convergence space as a conceptual tool by which to understand and critique grassroots globalization networks. The paper argues that contested social relations emerge in such convergence spaces and considers the implications of these for theorizing such networks, and for political action.     

日本经济现状的几点思考

从20世纪90年代开始,日本经济就忍受着失去方向感的痛苦。它不是首先把国家转变为全球经济的一部分,同时得到全球化的好处,而是希望某些行业作为一个全球化的后院来为世界的其他地方服务,不考虑从整体上让国家融入世界经济之中。日本希望自己的新经济高速发展,却不愿意对全球空间开放,也不愿意放弃其经济的旧的习惯领域。因此日本经济错过了最好的发展时机,在衰退的循环中一直走不出来。日本的教训很值得我们进一步研究。     

How Electoral Systems Can Influence Policy Innovation

This paper argues that in certain areas of policy, electoral systems can influence policy innovation (how early countries will adopt certain policies). Electoral systems influence the number of parties that win representation and thereby influence the diversity of perspectives included in the policymaking process. It is argued here that this diversity facilitates elite and public consideration of new issues and ideas, and consequently, it leads to earlier debate and action on these issues and ideas. This dynamic is particularly relevant to controversial issues and ideas that major parties may be hesitant to address and that minor parties may be more incentivized to promote. In this paper, two issues/ideas are considered: extending rights to same‐sex couples and making material sacrifices to protect the environment. I show that countries with more proportional electoral systems tend to act earlier to protect the environment and that they tend to be early adopters of civil union legislation. These results are also supported by World Values Survey data showing public preference patterns that support these policy outcomes.     

中国城市信息服务业发展影响因素研究——基于中国191个城市的空间横截面数据分析

采用空间统计和空间计量经济学原理和方法对2005-2010年间中国191个城市信息服务业发展的影响因素进行了实证研究。结果表明:城市信息化水平和人力资本对信息服务业的发展具有显著的正向作用;对外开放水平对信息服务业的发展影响不明显;城市间的产业关联对信息服务业发展没有通过显著性水平检验,这表明城市间物质层面的相互交换并没有对信息服务业的发展产生应有的正效应,而相反城市间的信息流动和知识溢出对信息服务业的发展具有显著的促进作用。